Charlotte Sutton, Senior Editor/Health and Politics

Charlotte Sutton is senior editor/health and politics, at the Tampa Bay Times. Since moving to Florida in 1986 she has covered news all over the state, including hurricanes, politics, arts and entertainment. She and her husband, a writer and teacher, live in St. Petersburg.

Probably not. According to the American Heart Association, 70 percent of us either have no idea how to perform CPR, or wouldn't feel confident enough in our knowledge to attempt it.

Most of the time when someone's heart suddenly stops beating, they're at home, completely in the hands of those around them. Yes, you should call 911 immediately in such an emergency. But in the moments it takes for paramedics to arrive, hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation could make all the difference. The heart association says survivor rates could at least double if more people did CPR....

No sensible person would look at Dawna Stone and think she needs to diet. Nonetheless, she is joining about 2,100 Facebook friends this week on her latest Healthy You 14-day challenge.

The program starts with a week of gradually eliminating stuff like sugar (real and fake), red meat, processed grains and alcohol, followed by a week of what the St. Petersburg healthy living entrepreneur calls "clean eating.'' After that, you gradually reintroduce foods that might be fine in moderation for your weight management efforts, whether you have more to lose or plan to maintain your weight for decades, as Stone has done....

A few weeks ago, I received a call from a reader, a retired baker who wanted to tell me about his experience in a well-respected hospital in north Pinellas County. He assured me his health is fine now, but a few things about his hospitalization troubled him.

He told me about a physician ordering the wrong dose of a medication, which made him sicker and kept him in the hospital a few days longer. Then, when he was well enough to leave, he and his wife waited 12 hours for someone to sign off on his discharge....

Exactly when it happened, precisely where I was, I truly cannot recall.

But the terrifying lurch my brain and stomach made late one night when I realized I had nodded off while driving down Interstate 75 somewhere in south Georgia? That I will never forget.

Those sensations came back with last week's news of the 16-year-old Texas boy who fell asleep driving the family car on a trip to Disney World. His parents and three siblings were killed; two more siblings were injured....

TALLAHASSEE — Republican consultants worked side-by-side with Republican lawmakers in guiding them on drawing new Florida congressional districts that intentionally favored incumbents in violation of the Fair District amendments to the state Constitution, according to documents and emails contained in a long-running redistricting lawsuit. The Scripps-Tribune Capital Bureau first obtained the lengthy documents, posting all 538 pages on its blog, Political Fix Florida, on Sunday. The Times/Herald obtained the same documents. The 538 pages of documents and emails were to be released to the public on Dec. 1 following U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decision Friday rejecting an emergency request to keep the information out of the public eye. GOP consultant Pat Bainter and his Gainesville-based firm Data Targeting had argued in the petition to the high court that releasing the documents publicly was a violation of his First Amendment rights. Media organizations, including the Associated Press and Miami Herald, had asked in a friend of the court brief for the documents to be released. The documents and emails suggest that Republican consultants proposed legislative districts to accommodate Republican incumbents and candidates. In one exchange, West Palm Beach consultant Rich Johnston asked Bainter and Mike Sheehan, who works for Bainter’s firm, for a spreadsheet containing the home addresses for candidates and incumbents. “Still have a problem in Manatee,” Johnston wrote in an Oct. 19, 2011, email to consultants Bainter and Mike Sheehan. “[Republican Sen. Bill] Galvano is west of Bradenton over by the water. Can we wrap the rest of Manatee County into SD 21 and retreat some out of Sarasota?” On Oct. 24, Sheehan told Johnston he had “adjusted [Senate District] to include the [Republican Sen. Anitere] Flores residence within the district. I was right next to the [sic] boarder so very little had to be changed.” On Nov. 10, 2011, Johnston asked Bainter to include “5007 Eagle Point Drive, Jacksonville” address in District 5. Property records show that address belongs to Michael and Judy Hogan. On Nov. 28, Johnston wrote: “Is there a way to put [Republican Rep. Steve] Crisafulli back in play?” The emails also suggested that the consultants labored to keep their work under wraps. “Just to ease your minds, I have tried to do most of the asking over the phone, so their is no e-mail trail if it gets forwarded. [...],” Jessica Corbett, of the firm Electioneering Consulting, wrote in a Nov. 29 email to another Data Targeting employee, Robert Krames. “I have stressed discretion to all.” “Good,” Krames replied. “Thank you.” In another email, Krames reached out to former Republican state Sen. Corey Baker, of Eustis, to help recruit people to speak in support of the maps at committee hearings. Bainter also addressed some long-standing questions about elected officials’ residences. In an Nov. 10, 2011, email to Johnson, Bainter said that former state Sen. John Thrasher, who recently became president of Florida State University, didn’t live in his St. Augustine district. “He actually lives in Clay County and would hope to end up there,” he wrote. The documents and emails emerged in connection with a lawsuit first filed in 2012 against the Florida Legislature and others by a coalition of Democratic-leaning groups and seven individuals led by the League of Women Voters. The groups say state Senate Republicans redrew districts for partisan advantage in violation of voter-approved “fair districts” amendments to the Constitution. The Fair District coalition declined to comment on the documents Sunday, noting that the court order sealing the documents had not yet been lifted. In July, Circuit Judge Terry Lewis sided with the League of Women Voters and others in ruling that GOP legislative leaders, guided by Bainter and other Republican consultants, drew two congressional districts that intentionally favored incumbents in violation of the Fair District amendments. Lewis blasted the political consultants for conducting what he described as a “secret, organized campaign” to subvert the redistricting process in violation of the state constitution. Lewis rejected Bainter’s claim that he had a First Amendment right to the secret documents that were requested by the coalition of voters groups challenging the congressional districts. When Lewis made his ruling on July 10, he gave legislators until Aug. 15 to modify the map and fix two districts in particular. Lawmakers responded by calling a rare summer-time special session and modified seven of the state’s 27 congressional districts, then appealed to the court to approve it. Lewis upheld the revisions and allowed Florida’s flawed congressional districts to remain in place for two more years....

A few days ago, the last remaining Ebola patient in the United States, a New York physician who treated patients in Africa, got the all clear and is back at home. The two nurses in Dallas who contracted the disease from Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died at their hospital, also are doing fine.

So, if you've been worried about Ebola in the United States, know that things are looking up here, though the crisis continues in West Africa....

Do you think you have the power to stop somebody from making a really bad decision?

If so, you probably don't have kids.

But if you're dealing with a grownup, I think you have a much better shot of at least suggesting there might be a better option they could consider.

It's open enrollment season for people on Medicare, the time when they can drop a plan that doesn't serve them, and pick a new one that could save them serious money and aggravation. But studies show most people never switch their Medicare Advantage or drug plans once they have enrolled — even though the plans often change the doctors, hospitals and medications they cover. ...

Deborah Grassman has made it her life's work to ease veterans' last days on earth. So she immediately knew what might help a man she met two years ago in an Ohio veterans home.

As a soldier in the Vietnam War, he couldn't get leave for the funeral of his brother, who was killed in combat. By the time he did go home, his brother was long buried, and no one wanted to talk about it.

For decades, the surviving soldier kept his grief buried, too. But as his own death neared, he needed resolution....

What if it turns out that how we eat is just as essential to our health as what we eat?

Our cover story today focuses on the importance to children of the family meal. Gathering at the table at least a few times a week, numerous studies indicate, is essential to healthy emotional and physical development.

But this isn't just kids' stuff.

Mindful eating — the exact opposite of what our dashboard dining culture promotes with every drive-through window — is a hot topic in nutrition research....

One of the interesting features of living in Florida is that Labor Day doesn't really mark the end of summer. The calendar says September, but we can fully expect to keep on sweating for weeks and even months.

On Oct. 5, my husband, some friends and I will be getting on our bikes and — we intend — riding farther than we ever have before. Some time ago, we signed up for the Cystic Fibrosis Cycle for Life event, and decided to go for the 62-mile course starting at Fort De Soto and winding through St. Petersburg. This is also known as a "metric century,'' as it's equal to 100 kilometers....

If you have an adolescent son or daughter, you might be wrestling with a big question: Whether to get your child the HPV vaccine.

Unlike other vaccines, this one isn't a requirement to go to school, and a lot of Florida parents are declining it. In fact, we have the second-worst HPV vaccination rate in the nation. Just a quarter of girls ages 13 to 17 (and even fewer boys) have received all three doses of the vaccination needed to protect against the human papillomavirus. ...